This site is a class blog space for new Career and Technical Specializations and Heathcare Science teachers enrolled in the New Teacher Institute (NTI) at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Advice
Is this before or after I book a cruise to the bahamas???? I guess the piece of advice that I could give my replacement is learn to RELAX!! Not everything is going to go smoothly everyday. You may have one lesson planned and then at the last minute everything may have to be changed! Students behavior or attitude my affect your plans for the day or a mandatory meeting at the school. You never know what may come up. I would suggest always having a back-up plan. You never know when you or someone in you family may get sick and you have to miss work. Make sure you have those emergency lesson plans in place. One day you could be planning to show a video or use the prjector and for some reason or another it may not work. What then? You cant just go home and say forget it! You have to find something else for the students to work on for that 90 minute class period. The best advice I can give to anyone about teaching is: BE PREPARED FOR ANYTHING!!
Relax, chill, enhance your calm! Any of these would have helped me my first year. I came from a very easy going work environment, and when I started teaching, my stress level shot through the roof. This was attributed mostly to everything you wrote. Once I learned to relax things got so much better. Things are not going to always run smoothly, because some things are just out of your control. Take a step back, stay calm, and relax...the bell rings everyday at 3:25.
ReplyDeleteRandi, you are sooo right! I have days where it seems as if nothing goes right. One of the hardest things for me to get used to was to have a sudden change in plans. In the beginning it caused me so much undue stress. Now I have learned to just "go with it"! I have found that if I don't freak out, the students don't usually know that there was ever a problem. My motto is "Compared to life or death, this is cake!"
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